


we've been fighting so long

by stupidloud



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Grief, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), so major spoilers guys, thats right im crying and youre all gonna do the same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-02 18:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14550807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidloud/pseuds/stupidloud
Summary: Steve.He flinches. When Nat says it. At least he thinks it’s Nat, because the— It echoes. There’s no sound when the dust is carried into the wind but it echoes.When he’s still on the ground, one hand buried in the leaves, the other hovering nearby.✪set right after infinity war





	we've been fighting so long

**Author's Note:**

> i've always tried to steer away from writing something marvel-related even though it's one of my top interests just 'cause i thought to be super good i need to know a lot more than i actually do. but after that ring of hell that was the last five minutes of infinity war, here we are. i cried, then started writing. hope y'all like it even though i should be writing a million other things lmao
> 
> that said infinity war is literally one of the best marvel movies so far and i loved it.

_Steve?_

He flinches. When Nat says it. At least he thinks it’s Nat, because the— It echoes. There’s no sound when the dust is carried into the wind but it _echoes._

When he’s still on the ground, one hand buried in the leaves, the other hovering nearby.

He’d come to love Wakanda. It was the future he’d fantasized about before being in it. It was the colors he never thought he’d get to see, and names that felt good to pronounce, warriors that reminded him of Peggy and a king that knew compassion, knew fairness, knew to turn tail when Shuri was prowling around with a camera and something shiny in hand. It couldn’t compare to Brooklyn, his memories of it. But it was a safe place.

A safe place. A safe place.

_Steve?_

“Cap—”

“What’s happening— Rogers, what—“

“Steve? Steve?”

_Steve?_

_Steve?_

Soft. Confused and that one hopeful—

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

Bucky was anything but naïve. Steve was the optimist. Steve said _Everything’s good_ even as Buck had to basically peel him off the alley floor, didn’t know where the blood was coming from. _Can’t get any worse_ when all the Commandos and then some were huddled in their perch on the mountains, waiting for the train.

It’d been Bucky though. This time.

Bruce’s awed comments and Shuri’s drawling, equally excited tone responding. The air of _Oh, we have a plan. Oh, we’re gonna win._

“I’m stayin’ this time,” Bucky muttered, crossing his arms and leaning on his heel to look at Steve steadily. “No more wars to separate us, ‘kay? We get our time.”

He bumped their shoulders together then turned back to hold his prosthetic out for Shuri to demonstrate something about the nerve receptors. She tapped her fingers on something over his bicep and it lit up. Buck looked at him and winked, blue sky behind him making his eyes brighter than Steve’d seen them in a long time.

_Oh, we’re gonna win._

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

It cracked over his other arm first. And— Even though he was looking right at it, Steve didn't notice because his eyes—

(flashing like lightbulbs about to go out, like their old apartment)

and then he stumbled.

 

Sam isn’t here. Neither’s T’Challa. Okoye’s eyes are red and there’s so much dust—ash floating through the air and he holds his breath. He doesn’t—

He—

_Steve?_

He doesn’t.

 

_"Oh God."_

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

“Steve?”

It sounded like a question. But it wasn’t. What could he have been asking?

 

His arm. Then his shoulder. The rifle fell mutely against the leaves, peacefully. And Bucky stumbled one more time before he didn’t have anything to stumble with. He was gone before Steve realized it. Before the ground the rifle’d fallen on had even settled.

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

"Does anyone have eyes on Sam? Where's Wanda?"

 

There aren't even bodies, except for Vision. There just aren’t. They can't tell who's dead and who isn't until they wait, hours and hours outside the castle, the body that had held the Mind stone set over one of the seats inside. The goddamn aliens seem to just drop off— the ones still solid— and that's not an issue anymore. 

They get Tony in those hours. Shuri gives Bruce her kimoyo beads to try and establish a connection with the suit's system. It takes long enough that Bruce starts muttering under his breath, angry,  _not you too—_

Steve almost collapses in on himself when he answers, pressing his forehead against his knuckles. 

"—connection in my— Earth? Am I— Is this signal from Earth?"

Natasha shuts her eyes and Thor whispers what might be a prayer. Bruce rushes to answer, already punching in coordinates, and that moment of elation feels wrong. Because Shuri is still crying and the raccoon— Rocket, Thor had been calling for him, that was his name— had his back to all of them. It doesn't last anyway.

Peter.

People Steve hadn’t even gotten a chance to meet.

 

_A snap of his fingers. A snap of his fucking fingers._

“—the kid—“

_Should've known he was from Queens. Didn't stop talking the whole time he was beating our asses at the airport. Called Barnes' arm cool, can you believe that shit?_

“—just—I’m going—I’m going, I’m—“

The transmission's spotty and Shuri doesn't do anything to fix it, tucked under Okoye’s arm and staring at nothing. 

“He… He said.” Tony’s shaking. Steve doesn’t have to be able to see him to know. “He didn’t. He didn’t—“

_He didn’t want to go._

 

"Their names," Rocket finally speaks when Tony's rambling stumbles at  _found these people looking for Thanos' other daughter, said they knew Thor but_. "What were their names?" He turns around and he's desperate and the yawning feeling of  _wrongness_ for it all just grows in the pit of Steve's stomach.

Thor's quieter. "Tony."

 

Rocket leaves. He doesn't wait for Tony to finish after the first name,  _Quill_ , before he's sprinting back to the forest. Thor follows him, a new layer of sorrow on his face.

 

Bucky. Sam. Wanda. Vision. T’Challa. Peter. A punk. A _kid_. A fucking _kid_. An entire  _family_.

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

Sam flexed his shoulders, cracked his neck, his everything like he always did, and didn’t even glance at Steve when he said, “I’m gonna take out more of those weird ass lizard things than you, then you’ll get a dog, and you’ll name it after me.”

Steve squinted, “I can’t tell if that’s a bet.”

“No. It’s a statement. Start finding kennels in your area, Cap.”

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

What surprises him is the lack of pretending. Maybe it's the Wakandans and their open displays of grief, different from the usual bout of repressing everything in the face of what was happening. But Okoye takes a deep breath that sounded like she has jagged jewels in her lungs and starts back toward the forest after them.

“I need to see,” she looks back, eyes still shining, still openly leaking, “if there is anything left. Anything we can bury."

Shuri follows

So does Bruce.

 

Steve lets Natasha support him even though he’s the one stepping out first. She has her arm tightly looped around his. It was here. It was present.

_At least you didn't go too. At least you're here with me._

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

He’d fallen to his knees and felt everything inside him shatter. Like a flower wilting away but all at once. His chest was full of the browning petals and he couldn’t _breathe_ and the warmth that had been in there because of those _eyes_ because of _Steve_ was fucking overheating him.

His bones were burnt. He was on fire. It was a wonder he didn’t turn to ash too.

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

Steve picks up the rifle. It has _J._ _B.B._ scratched into the side, tucked small enough near the trigger you’d only know it was there if you looked. Old habits. 

 

Thor comes out into the clearing with one of Rocket's hands touching the hilt of his axe. Steve didn't think an animal's face could be so expressive but the grief there almost bowled him over.

 

Natasha spots it but Rhodey picks up the piece of Sam's wings. Broken off next to a man-sized indent in the leaves. "I was—" His knuckles pale with his grip on the wing. "I was looking for him. I was calling his name. But he didn't answer."

 

Steve wants Okoye to come back with Shuri in front of her, cradling the Panther’s ring. Or the king's.

They don’t. Shuri’s crying again, all her weight against Okoye. He knows they shouldn’t be—

Wasting time? Was this wasting time? He didn’t even know what they were supposed to do. Not—

 

“Not yet,” he says when Nat gives him that look back in the castle. The _we have to talk._ This was usually about the time when the look came from Tony or Steve himself, more in the sense of _we have to regroup, we have to plan._

But this was more than a regular hit. This was a hard kick when you were already down, the one that shook your brain in your head and made the world greyscale, made everything go away for a second. Steve knew those hits. They were _way_ down. 

Tony said he was on his way, trajectory straight to Wakanda on a ship stolen from Thanos’ own fleet, piloted by one of his daughters. Nobody wanted to start anything without him. And there wasn’t like there was anything they could do right now, not while the rest of the world was still processing the order. Not while there was nothing they could do. 

He closes his eyes briefly.

_Steve?_

Okoye sits straighter, nodding her head. “No. Not yet. We need Stark and the daughter. We need somewhere to brgin.”

“She’s right.” Bruce keeps scraping his hands over his face, wincing whenever he touches the dressing on his hairline. His elbows are leaning on his thighs and Steve can hear how fast his brain is turning, “There’s no point. We—We just went through some serious mental,” he motions around his head and his hands are shaking, “and emotional crap. We need a second.”

“Yes,” Thor drums his fingers over his axe’s hilt, mismatched eyes gazing out onto the ruined forest, “I needed some time after Thanos killed my brother, my best friend, and the rest of my people.” He shrugs his shoulders but it doesn't hide how new the wound is, “Granted, it was spent floating in the void for a while. But it worked.”

It makes Steve want to laugh, weirdly enough. The fact they were at this point. That this household god he’d been hearing about since he was a kid was consoling them on this. That he’d experienced the same thing. And here it was all over again. How many more times? How many more of them?

Rocket isn't laughing, "That’s fucked up.”

“Yes. It is.”

 

He doesn’t have to ask Shuri. He's never really had to ask anything of her. When they all start trickling out of the room, she puts her hand on his arm, light enough at first he almost doesn’t feel it. He looks at her and he forgets sometimes, under all that intelligence, the confidence and the memes, that she’s not even old enough to vote. 

“I’m going to the White Wolf’s cottage,” she doesn’t smile but her face softens, like she would be. “Just to make sure the goats are okay. And to get some things I left there. I want to bring something back for you. Are you okay with that?”

He can see the princess in her, then, despite the drying tear tracks on her cheeks. Her eyes are mirrors of T’Challa’s. Steve nods, “Yes. Yeah. Please.”

Her hold on his arm squeezes and drops and she starts walking, “No need, Captain.”

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

The connection was crystal clear and Steve’d been amazed once again at how technology in the hands of a genius could transcend continents. Bucky was playing with a long piece of dried glass between his fingers, clean hair falling in his face, “Shuri said she wants to help me name the goats. I think she’s gonna mess with me and name them all after me-mes or somethin’.”

Steve could only see from the waist up, but he would bet his feet were kicked up on something. Steve leaned back in his chair, a rare moment of lull before having to move locations again, and couldn’t keep the slight smirk off his face. “It’s memes, Buck. And I think you’re right.”

Bucky groaned, tucking the grass between his pinky and his ring finger and rubbing his hand over his face, “My life’s being dictated by a sixteen-year-old girl, Stevie. And I might just _like it._ ”

“It’s not the worst thing,” Steve responded, snorting, because they _knew_ worse things. Bucky peeked through his fingers and the side of his mouth lifted. He let his head fall back and barked a laugh. Steve wanted to bottle it up and hear it on repeat.

 

For a second, it was their apartment. It was on the brink of their first war and they sat shoulder to shoulder on the roof of their building to look out over their city, over Brooklyn and the stars. Steve’s lip was split and he had a bruise the size of a jack ball above his eyebrow. He still remembered how much his face ached.

“You’re a piece of work, punk. I should ship you out to France and get you put up in the Louvre.”

Steve shrugged his shoulders and even that hurt but he held back the wince. He shifted so he could lean back more comfortably.

“That’s a great idea, Buck, but I don’t think we can afford that many stamps.”

Bucky elbowed him carefully. But he was grinning.

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

He takes the first room in the wing Okoye directs for them while they wait. The hallways of the castle are smooth, clean, but not like the ones that used to be S.H.I.E.L.D. or any other kind of official building he’s been in. These shone with golden symbols and characters that shifted and it all felt so sacred to walk through. That always-curious part of him wanted to enjoy them like he always did. Their first time in, T'Challa leading him and Bucky toward the elevator to take a room near his, he'd traced his fingers over the gold and imagined drawing them.

Natasha tugs him down into a tight hug, a kiss on his cheek. She gently touches the side of his face and he does the same to her battered knuckles.

“Later.”

Later. When his hands stop shaking and they aren't fraying at the edges and there's a second to breathe.

“Yeah, Nat. Later.”

He makes sure everybody gets a room as they pass him, out of habit, just to know where they are, and he feels like his bones are about to fall apart. His hand is strangling the doorknob and Thor glances down at it and tells him to go inside. That he would take care of anything anyone might need.

“Take your time while you have it, friend,” puts a hand on his shoulder that’s a push backwards in disguise. “I’ve had mine.”

His hand is still on Stormbreaker. Steve takes the step back, “Are you sure?"

Thor nods, "Of course."

He realizes how much he missed him. His kindness.

"Thank you."

The room is swathed black, silver, and gold, dimly lit in the purple dusk that comes through the windows behind the giant bed. The floor is a black marble and when the door shuts he’s on it, on his knees, then falling back against the wall, and he can see the veins of white cutting through it.

He can feel the tears cutting through all the dirt, the blood on his face. And it disables him.

_Steve?_

 

He scrambles to stand, desperate to get it _off_. The dirt—the _dust_ , the _ash_ —

 

Bucky. Sam. Wanda. T’Challa. Peter was too far away. 

 

In every space between his suit and his skin, his hair, under his nails, he thinks he can feel it in his lungs. Like he’s ninety pounds and not even tall enough to reach the top shelf all over again. It hurts to breathe and he doesn’t have his ma to push his hair back, doesn’t have Bucky—

Everything’s crushing him and he doesn’t think he can hold it this time. His shoulders are just about ready to give out and let him fall.

The bathroom’s marble is white instead of black. The only reason he knows how to use it is because the room he'd stayed in before the cottage was built was the same. His hands are shaking and he thinks he rips something in his suit as he’s taking it off but he can’t hear it with the destruction in his ears. With the noises of those creatures and everybody yelling at each other over the comms and—

The silence. No— Quiet. The quiet, because it was different than an absolute lack of anything, because Thanos disappeared and the wind was still gently swaying the trees. Everybody’s footsteps and the distant sounds of the tribes still fighting. Thor's labored breathing as the adrenaline ebbed away.

And Bucky stumbled.

Bucky said his name.

Bucky fell apart, right in front of Steve's eyes.

_It’s all he can think about._

 

He wants to say this might be what dying feels like, but considering the circumstances. Plus, death's always been cold for him. Bucky falling into the snow-covered valley the first time, his nosedive into the Artic, the stale air of the hospital when Peggy started getting worse. 

The water in the shower's scorching and he's freezing because everything inside him is still enough that he thinks his blood may not even he flowing.  His knees buckle and he sits half out of the stream, the sobs hurting with how hard they rack his chest.  _Deja vu_.

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

Bucky either got angry or real gentle. Angry was always Steve's fault, he'd made a wrong movement or overexerted himself just because he was being boar-headed about it all ( _"You look like you could blow away in a strong breeze, punk, but you ain't foolin' me. Will like the Empire building.")_.

Gentle was when he couldn't help it. 

"Hey," all gentle, kneeling in front of Steve on the couch, and Bucky was still almost at his eye level. "Hey. What's hurtin'?"

Steve couldn't really talk with how bad his lungs were contracting so just motioned, tapped the middle of his skinny chest and tried to make the wheezing stop. He could barely breathe and he felt like he was drowning. On thin air. Jesus Christ. That was five shades of pathetic.

"Okay. Okay." Bucky moved to sit next to him instead, put a light arm over his shoulders to pull him back. He tapped under Steve's jaw, "Chin up. You know the drill, pal."

He did, it was just that through the physical panic that set in, he didn't have time to think. So he tipped his head back and Bucky kept his arm around him without completely smothering him. Bucky waited a second before starting to comb his other hand through Steve's hair. Steve closed his eyes and listened, just like with his ma, and pulled himself back together.

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

_In for four, through your nose._

Steve tips his head against the wall, out of the stream. It isn't an asthma attack anymore, but it still works to calm him down. The memories of it. Of his ma softly singing to him even though he didn't understand the words of the lullaby from when she was a kid, Bucky lowly telling him everything he'd done that day against his temple. 

_Hold for five if it ain't too bad. Don't force yourself._

He doesn't have to. His heart beats louder in his ears and the water's getting warm but it feels better than the burning. His skin is buzzing and probably ridiculously red. But he can actually feel it now, which is a plus.

_Out eight, nice and slow._

He does it more than once. Just until maybe he can feel everything piled up behind his ribs shift and give him some space to function. Steve pulls himself upright. His legs are almost shaking.

He forgot to bring anything to actually  _clean himself_ with into the shower so he runs his hands through his hair a few times instead. He scrubs the sweat off his face, the dirt from under his nails, every bit of him that feels like it's coated in the fight. When he steps out he isn't better, but he isn't crumbling apart anymore.

The mirror's fogged over and he streaks a window in it out of habit. He looks the same except for the new bruises and the cut over his eyebrow.

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

"If I didn't wanna risk getting mobbed by every good citizen of this country, I'd clock you," Sam wheezed, hands on his knees. He stood straight only to crack his back. He dropped his voice in a mocking impression of Steve's, " _On your left_. Man, shut up." 

Steve leaned back against their tree, grinning around his water bottle, "Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault you can't keep up with me."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Brother, I'm  _serious_ when I tell you you're lucky you're pretty and someone would notice if you had come teeth missing."

Steve carefully made his face as curious as he could, tilting his head forward with wide eyes, "You think I'm pretty?"

He shoved at Steve's shoulder and Steve only stumbled because he was too busy laughing.

"You're a goddamn Adonis, man! What do you want from me!"

✪                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ✪

Shuri and Natasha are in the room when he comes out. Nat's standing in the middle of the silver-and-gold spun carpet with wet hair and arms crossed, wearing a red cloak that had to be Okoye's; Shuri's perched on the foot of his bed with a pile of things next to her, a black rectangular case under her arm. Steve sets down his dirty suit on the nightstand and tries to make the towel cover as much as it can. He might even be blushing and it's literally fucking ridiculous.

"I brought more than one thing back," Shuri says, shifting to half-stand and splay out the pile. It's mostly clothes, darker shades of red and blue for the civs and brighter shades for the Wakandan robes, and they're Bucky's. There's the colorful blanket he'd used on his bed, given to him by one of the mothers of the kids that'd liked to visit him. A couple of books,  _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and something in Italian. A silver chain. Steve walks forward and picks it out of the pile carefully. Dog tags. They'd found one of James Barnes' old dog tags when they were combing for his body, taken it into the exhibit. So Bucky had one worn, cold-tarnished, and the other newly done.

_He'd been wearing dog tags before we went out. Just not his._

Shuri touches the new one, "I was originally only planning on bringing this." She lets go and looks down at everything, then Nat, "But Natasha came with me and we could carry more in."

"You'd want it eventually," Natasha says. "And we won't have time to visit later. Tony said he's halfway."

"If you don't want it—"

"No," Steve wraps the chain around his fist, "no. It's— Thank you." His eyes are still sore from the crying and they might just be filling up again, "You didn't have to."

Shuri gets up, the case tucked close to her side, and gives a soft smirk that almost reaches her eyes, "Of course I didn't. That is the beauty of my generosity." She touches Steve's temple, nods at them both, and walks out. They both respond with one armed salutes, Steve pressing the fist with the dog tags to his heart and keeping it there.

The door closes. Steve sits down next to Bucky's things and pulls at  _Mockingbird's_ worn cover. It's marked halfway by a dried piece of grass close to curled into a heart at the top.

"You didn't bring any extra clothes." Natasha sits on the other side where Shuri'd been. She picks at one of Bucky's shirts.

"No. I didn't."

She smooths out the sleeve, "Would it be weird if you wore them?"

A part of him wants to say it is. There's some old superstition about wearing the clothes of someone who'd gone, but he can't remember how it went.

"I don't know," his voice is weird, he can feel it. Too raw. "Would it?"

Nat takes out the whole t-shirt and it has a faded Stark Industries logo on it, flaps it out, "You did it when you visited anyway. He wouldn't mind. He definitely  _didn't_ mind." The side of her pale mouth was quirked up like she didn't notice. "Sam might've been the only person apart from Bruce smart enough to bring a duffel. So those are your options."

 _So many of_ _us._

"Steve." She held the shirt out, "It's not weird. I promise."

He takes the shirt, the one pair of black sweatpants, and plain briefs. Natasha rolls her eyes when he waits for her to turn around before taking off the towel. They smell like sun and Bucky. The field where the cottage is. He has to keep telling himself it's just that, Bucky's clothes, that he's probably worn before. Everything's soft and Bucky'd always been like that, sacrificing every comfortable bone in his body just to wear something nice out, but everything for the house was well-worn.

Nat turns back as he's pulling on the shirt. She steps forward and straightens it out as if it was a three-piece suit and not something Shuri had probably gotten for him to be ironic. She crosses her arms again, "Not weird."

It doesn't feel weird. He wanted it to, just so everything was that much more solidified. But it's just clothes. Just Bucky.

"Yeah. You're right," he unravels the dog tags and worries the new one between his fingers, over the  _James,_  while he sits down.Natasha watches him do it for a second before opening her mouth and he shuts his eyes, "Not yet, Nat. I can't yet."

She's still for too long. Steve doesn't have to look to know her face is going through every stage of debate. When he does look, she's biting her bottom lip, eyes shining. He drops the dog tags around his wrist and puts his hand on her arm, "If you have to, you can. Friendship goes both ways."

"But then what kind of international spy would I be?" She asks dryly, but her voice kind of cracks at the end and Steve moves some of the things aside carefully for her to sit again, close enough for him to put his arm around her shoulders. She lets him. She folds her feet up and lets Steve hug her.

She doesn't cry noisily. Always the Russian. He can feel his shirt getting damp, though. Even though she doesn't say anything.

"How did we lose so many?"

He's not sure if he's crying. He doesn't particularly care. It's just Nat.

"It's war, Nat. War doesn't give a shit."

 

Never has. 

  

_He dreams of them._

_The living room is in an apartment he doesn't recognize. He knows it's in Brooklyn anyway, the one he remembers. It's homey and he knows it's not just his because of the clothes, the untidy shoes near the door. Pair upon pair. He starts forward and there's loose hair bands on the thin table near the doorway, a record player next to a brown couch. Paintings and a picture of the Howlies grinning like idiots on the wall leading to the kitchen._

_They're sitting at a table, chairs squished in on all sides. Pepper and Nat are sipping idly on glasses of wine, Nat pulling a chair out with her foot when Okoye comes to put a basket of bread in the middle. Tony has his fingers laced through Pepper's on the table even as he stabs a finger from the other hand at Bruce in an argument Steve can't hear. Shuri and Peter are watching with delight, Rhodey squinting like he's considering making Tony shut up. Thor is talking with his mouth overflowing with food, showing off Stormbreaker to T'Challa excitedly, the king tapping his necklace with a grin and nodding. There's a muffled shout from the kitchen and Shuri turns her head toward it, pumps a fist up and whoops. Bucky comes sprinting out, covered in flour, dodging sharply to the right to avoid a cheese grater being thrown at his head. Wanda stops it in midair so it doesn't hit Bruce. Sam comes soon after, livid in a KISS THE COOK'S ASS apron and wielding a pestle. He has a white hand print smacked on the side of his head._

_Steve can't hear them. But everybody's warm around the edges._

_Bucky nearly crashes into him, taking him by the shoulders and whirling them around so he can wrap his hands around his middle, using him like a shield. His voice is taunting against the side of Steve's neck and Sam starts to untie the apron dangerously slow and Thor's deep laugh shakes the room._

 

There's that second. Always there's that second after losing someone that you think they'll come around the corner, or you'll hear their voice down the hallway, or they're waking you up—

Another muted knock on the door and Steve opens his eyes. Nat is moving, unfolding from her spot curled in his chest and walking soundlessly to the door. He sits up as she opens it.

Tony doesn’t look any different to when they’d left him in the bunker. It could’ve been a day of difference instead of a year, beat up face and all. His hair’s wet and the oversized hoodie points to him getting clothes from Bruce. The dark crescents of _tired_ under his eyes are somehow deeper than before.

He and Nat are staring for a second.

“Thor said, uh,” he moves and his entire body seems to protest it, “Thor said Steve’s here.”

Nat nods and opens the door wider. Steve squints at the light, one hand coming up to block it. He realizes the dog tags are still wrapped around his fists, making little indents in his palm. He starts unwinding it slowly.

“Yeah.” She waits before hugging him, a long intake of breath before she pulls back, “Is everybody in the throne room?”

Tony swallows and Steve sees the first signs of how much he’s actually holding away. _Everybody. Everybody who’s left, maybe._

“Yup. Yeah, Nebula—Thanos’ other daughter—she’s briefing everybody with what she knows.”

Nat nods one more time and glances back, “Steve?”

_Steve?_

“Go,” his voice fights its way out. “We’ll catch up later.”

 

Tony stands in the middle of the room and he doesn’t fidget.

He’d been with Bruce during the walk through of Wakanda (it didn't feel like that had been hours ago, it didn't feel like a real memory) and thought Tony would be the same, if not a little more controlled. Just like Steve’s first day in Coney Island, thirteen with wide eyes and the urge to want to know _everything._

He’s still. Arms crossed, eyes roaming the room without that light. 

“Y’know,” he finally meets Steve’s eye then away, starting to pivot on his heel, “I’d thought the décor would be a little less severe. More splashes of color.” He motions vaguely toward the walls, the bed.

Steve knows him. Not as well as he maybe should’ve but enough. That’s not a safe voice. “Tony.”

He makes a detached noise, “Hm?”

“Be straight with me,” he fully uncurls the dog tags so the aluminum is flashing in the dim light. “Please. I know—We left things off how we did—“

“C’mon, Cap.” His face is trying to decide between a number of hollow expressions, “I know you’re always living in the past or whatever, but, uh, that’s ancient history. B.C. I’ve already deleted the memory to make room for everything else.” He adds, with a dry chuckle, “Planning the biggest wedding of the millennia and everything.”

Steve goes cold, “Pepper—“

“—is on her way,” Steve can hear how relieved he is despite the sheer _nothing_ in how he’s forming his words. “Yup. Hitched a ride with one of the pilots that isn’t _Gone with the Wind._ ”

His voice changes.

The dog tags jangle together when they fall onto the bed, “Tony—“

“He—“ Tony stops, still, so still Steve thinks—He might just blow away. He rejects the thought. Tony looks at Steve directly and it sticks, “He crumbled. In my arms. I didn’t think—“ His hands are suddenly in commission again, flapping around as he talks, “I mean, anatomically, how does that even work, y’know? That’s a body. That’s a human body. It’s a heart and—and veins, and bones, and— And he just,” he snaps his shaking fingers and rakes the same hand through his hair, “disappears. All of that turned into dirt, man. In my arms. Like—Like fucking _dust_.”

He scratches at the back of his neck, turns around, paces, is in full animation now and it’s not better. It looks like a grotesque imitation. “I can’t even tell his aunt. I called Pepper, my phone died, but that’s not an excuse. I’m in the most technologically advanced city in the world and I don’t—“ He laughs giddily, “I mean, I don’t even know if May’s _alive_. Is that better? If she’s alive?”

Steve flinches at how his voice is starting to get louder, tries again, “Tony—“

“This kid—he’s not even _close_ to graduating fucking _high school_ by the way, which I guess isn’t even important,” another laugh, sharp, “right? I mean, he can get dragged to space to fight the world’s most powerful fucking grape by the most egotistical son of a bitch on God’s green earth, but he has to get home back on time for his Chemistry final—“

“Tony,” he stands. Where there was everything, now there’s nothing. He feels like he could disappear into himself if he breathes too hard. “It’s not your fault.”

“Right. Yeah.” He points, wags his finger a bit, “I know that. I kept thinking that, on the way here. Because even if he hadn’t been there. It would’ve still happened, right?” He rubs at the side of his face, almost like he can’t feel the bruises.

“Then why does it still feel that way?”

He can’t answer that only because the feeling’s mutual. Because it wasn't even their fault, it was a game of chance and they just happened to be the ones still standing. They were the fucking lucky ones.

"How are you so put together?" It's abrupt enough that Steve doesn't register it for a second. He blinks. Tony gives a watery chuckle, "Don't get me wrong, man, you still look like absolute crap. But you just lost two of the closest people in your life, a good ol' double whammo, and you're not a shriveled pile on the floor. I was that. For a good couple of hours. I might go back to that, actually, after this little chat."

Steve crosses one arm over his chest. "I don't know. I think if I were to actually let everything out, I wouldn't be able to take it."

_It’ll make it real._

Tony nods a little bit. He considers it before walking over and sitting down next to him, looking straight in front of him. He wipes his hands on his pants. His laugh is a weak imitation of one, “Guess we’re matched, huh? My kid dying in my arm versus your best friend and your Pepper." He winces. Sighs and rubs at his temple with his knuckle, "Christ, that was fucking awful. Sorry.”

It doesn't sting as much as it should. Just because he knows it's true. Just because he doesn’t have enough space despite the hollowness to feel it at one of the few people he still has left.

Steve shifts so he can wrap the chain around his hand again. Tony’s eyes widen, alarmed, like he can’t decide if Steve’s about to punch him or start crying.

He just might.

“I keep thinking it's not fair," he looks up to Tony watching carefully. "That T'Challa's a great man, that Peter and Wanda were just kids, and Rocket doesn't deserve to be the only remaining member of his team. Sam's one of the best of us, he was—" Steve doesn't get through that. He has to try again, "He was one of the best people in my life. And Bucky was all of himself again. He was better.

"And it's not fair. It just isn't. People everywhere are losing the people they love, just because some other tyrant decides to have a god complex. I've seen that before, Tony, and they're never actually gods. They're people driven by their own want to make something of themselves, and it corrupts them." The dog tags are digging into his skin, warm now, and he has to feel the name again to make his voice calm. "Which is why we have to fight. We have to make sure they didn't—" He squeezes his eyes shut. It's more than he thought he could get out. 

He can see them so clearly.

It finally hits around there. Maybe because he finally said it all out loud and it's still hanging there in front of them but he can hear a voice at the back of his head. Heavily Brooklynite and seventy years younger, the same one that would always kick up the coals of the fire under his ass when he would start giving up.

_You really gonna bow out now, after getting a good few licks in? Get back on your feet and fight, Rogers._

Angry was really his only setting for these situations. It was his default.

"We have to make sure we win their fight," Tony finishes.

Steve wipes at his eyes roughly and nods. There's the palpable sense of hesitation in the pause before Tony puts his arm around him and squeezes once. Steve laughs through his nose.

They stay like that a moment. 

 

"Have I made fun of you for the beard yet?"

"Are you actually gonna do that? Right now?"

"Shitty humor's how I cope with shitty feelings and you know it, Rogers."

 

The dog tags settle under his shirt as the elevator doors open, a straight dart of a hallway toward the throne room. They walk side by side, Steve taking extra care to use the full expanse of his legs so Tony struggles for a second to catch up, so he's even a little bit angry at someone other than himself. Tony definitely knows it’s on purpose. He’s definitely not going to complain about it.

The doors are the same material as the walls, polished vibranium handles and spears splitting out from the seam.

Tony glances up at him, the bricks building up so his face is determined, angry, “You ready?”

_I still can’t see the end of it, Buck. I don’t think I will._

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

They open the doors.

**Author's Note:**

> comments n kudos appreciated yall  
> 


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